Need for schools is real in crowded Snohomish
Published 9:00 pm Monday, May 3, 2004
If you’ve driven recently along Cathcart Way – the still-new, five-lane road that connects the Silver Firs area and Highway 9 – you’ve seen the explosion of new housing.
Most of those homes are in the Snohomish School District, which is already feeling the crush of overcrowding.
The district is exploding with new families, but it hasn’t built a new school since Centennial Middle School opened 12 years ago. Every school in the district, with the exception of two elementary schools, is operating beyond enrollment capacity. Snohomish High School and the Freshman Campus house a total of 2,801 students, 336 more than they were designed to hold.
Projections show the problem is only going to get worse.
That’s why the district is asking voters to approve a major fix, one that would build a new high school and elementary school at the former Cathcart landfill, completely modernize the existing high school and provide infrastructure improvements to other aging facilities.
The total cost of the district’s May 18 bond measure, an attention-getting $141.5 million, equates to about $23 per month for the owner of a $200,000 home. That’s a lot to ask for in one measure, but it accurately reflects the need.
Overcrowding is a problem that has a direct impact on learning. It also can have an effect on safety, as staff members struggle to keep order in a facility bursting with kids.
Voters will undoubtedly ask why, if a new $67 million high school would be built, the old one also needs to be overhauled for almost as much. The answer is one of equity, of ensuring that all the district’s high school students receive the same opportunity to succeed. To have half of the district’s high schoolers learning in a state-of-the-art environment while the other half is forced to make do in a completely outdated facility would be grossly unfair. For that reason, it also would have zero chance of gaining the required 60 percent voter approval.
This measure was developed by a 36-member citizens committee that included some of the district’s past critics. It’s clear that the serious financial problems that followed a double-levy failure in 1994 and an inability of former district officials to live within their means have been solved, and trust rebuilt. To be sure, a citizen bond oversight committee would be formed to see that all provisions of the bond measure are met.
Even this measure won’t be enough to bring the district’s facilities up to the demands of a growing population. But it will take care of its high school needs, and show that the district can grow in a responsible, accountable way.
Voters should approve it.
